6 NOVEMBER 1897, Page 38

A Last Throw. By Alice M. Diehl. (Digby and Long.)—Of

all extraordinary villains to be met with in or out of fiction Monsieur Diaz de Sorrente is the most extraordinary. So thorough a scoundrel, and withal so chivalrous, could hardly be matched in the world of reality or unreality. We must own to liking something more within the lines of probability ; but the reader will find a certain kind of interest in the tale which, for reasons not apparent at first sight, Mrs. Diehl has chosen to entitle A Last Throw.